
mass / '! : .■ .'^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSnV 




CARDINAL NEWMAN. 



'(/ / 

CARDINAL NEWMAN'S 

DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

WITH 

IntroduBion and Commentary 



FOR USE IN HIGH SCHOOLS, ACADEMIES 
AND COLLEGES 



BY 

JULIUS GLIEBE, O.F.M. 

Franciscan Friary, Oakland, Cal. 

Sometime Professor of Rhetoric in St. Anthony''s Seraphic College, 
Santa Barbara, Cal. 



NEW YORK 
SCHWARTZ, KIRWIN & FAUSS 






Copyright, 1916, by 
SCHWARTZ, KIRWIN & FAUSS 




FEB 19 1916 



2)aA4l889S 






1^ CONTENTS 

J Page 

Introduction i 

The Dream 23 

Appreciations 71 

Notes 75 



. . . For one zvJio speaks in nnmhers ampler 

scope 
His utterance finds; and conscious of the 

gain, 
Imagination zvorks with holder hope. , . . 

Sonnets, 

Wordsworth. 



INTRODUCTION 

History of the Poem. — The year 1865 
found John Henry Newman, the author of 
The Dream of Gerontius, an old man, Hving 
with his brethren in quiet seclusion in the 
Oratory at Birmingham. He was now close 
upon his sixty-fourth birthday, and natur- 
ally, as the years advanced, began to look 
forward with greater frequency to his ap- 
proaching end. That supreme moment in 
every man's life when the soul goes out to 
meet its Judge, had been to him at all times 
as if a present reality; and now that the 
time was very near, as he thought, when he 
should pass '' from shadows and images 
to the truth," that moment became more 
than ever the subject of his thoughts and 
meditations. In January, 1865, ^^ suddenly 
came into his mind to put his thoughts on 
death into the form of a dramatic poem ; and 



2 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

having finished writing it — current e calamo 
as it seems — he laid the thing aside not 
quite satisfied with it. 

A few months later it so happened that 
Newman w^as asked by Father Henry James 
Coleridge S. J., editor of The Month, for a 
contribution to that magazine; and having 
just then nothing theological to oiTer, he 
sent the editor a poem, along with the re- 
mark that he might do wath it what he chose. 
The poem thus carelessly offered was none 
other than TJie Dream of Gerontius. It 
was thankfully w^elcomed by Father Cole- 
ridge, and shortly afterwards made its 
appearance in two parts in successive num- 
bers of The Month. 

After the first part appeared in the May 
number, Newman w^-ote to his friend, 
Thomas William Allies : " As to Gerontius, 
perhaps the second part will be a failure, 
so be cautious with your criticism." The 
second part appeared in the subsequent 
number, and was received with as much 
enthusiasm and praise as the first. It 
would seem that the author was urged to 



HISTORY OF THE POEM 3 

make further additions to the poem, for 
in another letter to Mr. AlHes, written not 
long after, Newman says : " No, I as- 
sure you, I have nothing more to produce 
of Gerontius. I could no more write any- 
thing else by willing it, than I could fly/' 
And to the Reverend John Telford he wrote : 
" You do me too much honor if you think 
I am to see in a dream everything that is to 
be seen in the subject dreamed about. I 
have said what I saw. Various spiritual 
writers see various aspects of it, and, under 
their protection and pattern, I have set down 
the dream as it came before the sleeper. It 
is not my fault if the sleeper did not dream 
more. Perhaps something woke him. 
Dreams are generally fragmentary; I have 
nothing more to tell." 

The Dream was afterwards added to the 
author's earlier poems, which were published 
together under the title Verses on Various 
Occasions. Previous to this, however, a 
separate edition of the poet's masterpiece 
had been prepared and brought out, which 
was affectionately inscribed to a departed 



4 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

friend and brother Oratorian, Father John 
Joseph Gordon, as follows : — 

Fratri Desideratissimo 
Joanni Joseph Gordon 
Oratorii S. P. N. Presbytero 
Cujiis Anima in Refrigerio. 

In die Comm J- ^' ^' 

Omn. Fid. Def. 1865. 

To my very dear brother, John Joseph Gordon, 

Priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri. 
May his soul be in the Place of Refreshment. 

John Henry New'MAN. 
All Souls' Day, 1865. 

This edition of TJie Dream has since gone 
through more than forty-five reprints. It 
was translated into French in 1869, and into 
German in 1885. Two other events have 
contributed to the increased knowledge and 
popularity of The Dream; it was made the 
subject of an inaugural address by the Pro- 
fessor of Poetry at Oxford, Sir Francis 
Doyle; and by Sir Edward Elgar, the cele- 
brated composer, was worked into an ora- 
torio which, since its first appearance in 
1900, has received a wide appreciation at 
home and abroad at the hands of the best 
musical critics. 



THE METRE 5 

The Dream has already taken, and holds 
to-day, as in 1888 William Ewart Gladstone 
said it would take and hold its position in 
the literature of the world. With the best 
contemporary critics w^e may confidently 
say that the great Oratorian's poetic master- 
piece is simply imperishable, and will ever 
be numbered among the great poems of the 
w^orld. 

The Metre. — The metre in The Dream 
is as highly varied as it is elegantly chosen. 
There are throughout the poem no less than 
eight variations of verse and stanza forms. 
It is interesting and instructive to observe 
how wonderfully each measure in its turn 
obeys, as its dictator, the inner thought and 
sentiment ; and in reading the poem, it is im- 
possible not to be struck with the author's 
masterliness, which, with apparent ease and 
consummate grace, blends the tw^o opposing 
rhythms, phrasal and metrical, into a living 
harmony. 

The most prevalent measure is the Iambic 
Pentameter, the standard English line for 
serious poetry. It is used by the two prin- 



6 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

cipal actors in the drama, Gerontius and his 
Guardian Angel. The recitative and ex- 
planatory portions are usually blank, and are 
massed, according to the sense, into para- 
graphs of unequal length. But as soon as 
the underlying sentiment becomes more in- 
tense and lyrical, the blank verse is straight- 
way abandoned and gives way, following the 
current of the sense, to a variety of stanzas, 
the lines of which are variously grouped and 
interrelated by means of the rhyme, by the 
interspersion of alternate trimeters or di- 
meters, and by the use of an Alexandrine or 
fourteener as conclusion of a period, — thus 
transfusing the whole with the life-blood of 
an ever-changing yet delightfully harmoni- 
ous movement. 

Take the closing lines of the poem, the 
parting words of the Angel Guardian to the 
Soul, and observe how fittingly they are 
thrown into a slightly modified form of the 
Elegiac Stanza. The standard four alter- 
nately rhyming iambic pentameters are, by 
the introduction of an occasional trochee, 
and by the addition of a rhyming over-syl- 



THE METRE 7 

lable in the second and fourth Hnes, limbered 
up to a charmingly graceful and easy move- 
ment and softened into a tone of ineffable 
sweetness and tenderness : — 

Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul, 
In my most loving arms I now enfold thee, 

And o'er the penal waters, as they roll, 

I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold thee. 

This is the movement and tone of purest 
song, and hence too it so readily lends itself 
to the rhythm of music : — 

III I I I III III I I I :^ 

Fare - well, | but not | for e | ver, bro | ther dear, 

I III I I I ll I I I I I 
Be brave | and pa | tient on | thy bed j of sor | row, 

J^J J J |J J i J J |J J I J ^ 

Swift - ly I shall pass | thy night | of tri | al here, 
I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 
And I I will come | and wake [thee on| the mor row. 

As an illustration of how pliant and varied 
in pause, accent, and rhyme the standard 
verse may under a master hand become, we 
may instance the passage where the dying 



8 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Gerontius describes his feelings of fear and 
dread at his approaching dissolution : — 

I can no more, for now it comes again, 

That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain, 

That masterful negation and collapse 

Of all that makes me man ; as though I bent 

Over the dizzy brink 

Of some sheer infinite descent; 

Or worse, as though 

Down, down for ever I was falling through 

The solid framework of created things, 

And needs must sink and sink 

Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still, 

A fierce and restless fright begins to fill 

The mansion of my soul. And, worse and worse, 

Some bodily form of ill 

Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome curse 

Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and flaps 

Its hideous wings. 

And makes me wild with horror and dismay. 

Observe, first of all, at what irregular in- 
tervals the lines are made to rhyme; and 
next, how the precipitousness of the " sheer 
infinite descent " and the consequent horror 
of the '' fierce and restless fright " are strik- 
ingly brought out by the sudden breaking ofif 
of three of the lines, the very reading of 
which gives one the sense of bending over a 
dizzy brink and having one's breath sud- 



THE METRE 9 

denly taken away. Two further lines are 
cut short, indicating Gerontius' pausing in 
utter dismay at sight of the Evil One, whose 
loathsome curses and offensive shrieks are 
onomatopoetically echoed in the two inter- 
vening full lines. And how deftly yet how 
simply the movement is varied! First, it is 
accelerated by the use of a trochee - ^ instead 
of an iamb --, producing a dactylic inter- 
weave in the line : — 

Over the dizzy brink ; 

next, two lines later, it is suddenly slowed 
down by a spondee - -, which admirably 
brings out the feeling of 

Down, down for ever falling ; 

and then it becomes rapid again, even 
hurried, and breathless, indicating the de- 
parting soul's restless fright and anxious 
trepidation. 

It appears then that the poet, while on 
the whole faithful to the original pattern 
of iambic pentameters, still moves with 
the perfect ease and freedom of a mas- 
ter, obeying only the fundamental require- 



lO THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

ments of the underlying thought; and 
by thus continually breaking and varying 
the structure of the verse, skilfully avoids 
the ever present danger of monotony, which 
would else naturally arise from five iambic 
feet succeeding each other line after line. 

Next to the pentameter in prevalence is 
the so-called Ballad Measure, consisting of 
two iambic tetrameters alternated with two 
rhyming iambic trimeters; which measure 
is most suitably adopted for the songs of 
creation, fall, and redemption sung by the 
five Choirs of Angelicals : — 

J ! J J N J N J N 

To us I his el | der race | He gave 



J I J J ! J 



To bat I tie and I to 



wm, 



With - out I the chas | tise - ment | of pain, 



J I J J I J J I J 

With - out I the soil | of sin. 

Then there is the Trochaic Measure, used 
in the final prayers of Gerontius and his 
Assistants, as also in the pleading of the 



THE METRE II 

Angel of the Agony. Gerontius' prayer 
takes the form of the alternate rhyming 
Hymn Stanza, technically called the 8s and 
7s, the second and fourth lines being one 
syllable short. Its light and tripping move- 
ment suits well with the confident tone of 
his dying prayer : — 

J J N J N J N J 

Sim - ply to His grace and whol - ly 

J J I J J I ^ J I J 

Light and life and strength be - long, 



I 
And I 



to His grace and 


1 
whol 


I 1 1 
life and strength 


1 
be - 


1 III 
love su - preme - ly, 


sole 



Ml III II I 



I ill III III 

Him the ho - ly, Him the strong. 

while the solemnity of the reverent and 
piercingly ardent prayer of the Angel of 
the Agony aptly registers itself in the tro- 
chaic hexameter: — 

I II ! ! I I 11 I I I I I I I 

<^ d \ d d \ ^ d \ ^ d \ ^ d \ <^ 
Je - su, by that shud-dering dread which fell on Thee. 

In the Litany of the Saints recited by the 
Assistants we have a perfect specimen of 



12 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

interchange and blending of measures. The 
Church's solemn prayer is opened in an ir- 
regular flow of anxious ejaculatory cries to 
Heaven for help in this hour of need. While 
for a moment it becomes more even and 
quiet, as expressed in the subdued strain of 
two iambic lines, it suddenly leaps into the 
more rapid anapestic and amphibrach tune, 
where with impetuous eagerness God is im- 
plored to preserve His servant 

From the sins | that are past, 
From Thy frown | and Thine ire, 
From thS per|ils of dying, 
From any | complying 
With sin or | denying 
His God, or | relying 
On self I at the last. 

Here the first two lines are regular ana- 
pestic dimeters, but from the third on each 
line snatches in its hurrying course a short 
syllable from the next following, thus pro- 
ducing an amphibrach blend; and the ana- 
pestic scheme is fully recovered only in the 
last line. The Litany then goes on in a 
lighter and more confident tone, which is 



THE METRE 1 3 

well expressed in the movement of the 
trochee. It appears first in rhymed couplets 
of 7s : — 

By Thy | birth and | by Thy | Cross 
Rescue | him from | endless | loss ; 

and then in rhymed couplets of lis: — 

Rescue | him, O | Lord, in | this his | evil | hour 
As of I old so I many | by Thy gracious | power. 

Finally there is to be noted the measure of 
the Demon's Chorus, which is a wonderful 
achievement of poetic artistry. The medley 
of iambs, trochees, amphimacers, dactyls, 
and anapests is completely controlled by the 
undertone of phrasal rhythm, which by sud- 
den abrupt breaks and by the congestion 
of short syllables operates to produce the ef- 
fect of a howl of infernal dissonances. The 
feet vary in length almost at random from 
two to five syllables, yet are so masterfully 
held together by a complete scheme of rhyme, 
which, though copious and perfect, shoots 
to and fro so irregularly that it seems ap- 
parently but to serve to heighten the effect 
of confusion and disorder. This solitary 



14 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

note of harmony amid the continued jangle 
of disharmonies is probably meant by the 
poet to indicate the one principle upon 
which these lawless beings are agreed — 
their inveterate hatred of, and relentless 
opposition to, God and the human race. 

The Flight of the Soul — The Dream 
of Gerontius is not a theological treatise on 
the state of the soul after death. But, in 
spite of what Newman himself has re- 
marked regarding it, — that it is merely a 
fragment, — in the sense, viz., that the 
sleeper did not see all that was to be seen in 
that new and undiscovered country, it must 
nevertheless be admitted that the poem as 
a w^hole presents so complete a view of one 
phase at least of the soul's existence, that 
it is difficult to see how even formal theology 
could tell us more of that wonderful flight 
of the soul from earth to purgatory. This 
central idea and theme of the poem is 
beautifully elaborated in seven parts, which 
are chronologically so closely linked to- 
gether that they have simply been called 
paragraphs. 



THE FLIGHT OF THE SOUL 15 

The first of these paragraphs, which 
serves as an introduction, describes the lat- 
ter part of that dread hour, the novissima 
hora of this Hfe, the hour of immediate 
preparation for the Soul's appearance be- 
fore its Judge. The remaining six para- 
graphs, which tell the Soul's history in an- 
other land, can hardly be said to have any 
chronology at all, 

For spirits and men by different standards mete 
The less and greater in the flow of time; 

and all the Soul's experience, from the in- 
stant it leaves the body to its final immersion 
in the lake, covers a space less than a million- 
million-millionth part of a moment. Yet in 
this infinitesimal fraction of a moment we 
have compressed by a master theologian the 
vast and complicated history of God's deal- 
ings with His creatures. 

The Line of Argument. — Following 
the divisions made by the author himself, we 
may now attempt a brief characterization 
of the various parts and point out the lead- 
ing ideas employed in each paragraph. 



1 6 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Paragraph I. — The prevailing tone of 
this part is one of deep sorrow and intense 
pain, yet tempered withal by Christian resig- 
nation and confidence in God's abiding love. 
Gerontius, fortified by the rites of Holy 
Church, and strengthened by the Bread of 
the Strong, lies calm and recollected on his 
death-bed ready to die. But as he hears 
death knocking its dire summons at his door, 
he is seized with a sudden terror by which 
he is driven to invoke the powerful names 
of Jesus and Mary. The little time that 
still remains he uses well in making acts 
of faith, hope, contrition, and love ; and then 
unreservedly surrenders himself into the 
hands of God. 

His account of the awful agony is con- 
stantly interspersed by short ejaculatory 
prayers ; and though he instinctively flinches 
from that " sense of ruin which is worse than 
pain," he is yet powerfully assisted and 
buoyed up by the prayers of his friends who 
presently begin with the attending priest to 
say the Litany, asking all the Saints of God 
to intercede for him, and imploring God 



THE FLIGHT OF THE SOUL 17 

Himself to deliver him from the danger of a 
final fall, and to save him by the merits of 
Christ. With the words of the expiring 
Saviour on his lips, Gerontius dies, answer- 
ing the call of the Master, just at the mo- 
ment when the priest, in the name of God, 
bids the Soul go forth on its journey from 
this world. 

Paragraph 11. — The final struggle over, 
Gerontius goes to sleep — the sleep of death, 
and in the same moment awakens in another 
world, refreshed by a sense of inexpressible 
lightness and freedom. But the Soul being 
deprived of its body, through which on earth 
it held communion with the outer world, is 
now thrown entirely upon itself; and, being 
in a state of separation not originally in- 
tended, feels its solitariness out in the deep 
stillness despite the '' sweet soothing rest " 
of eternity. For a moment it is perplexed in 
its new surroundings ; lodged, as it were, in 
the rent of the veil that divides this life from 
the next, it feels itself neither here nor there ; 
from the one side it hears but faint echoes 



l8 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

of earthly voices, and on the other it has 
before it the infinite stretch of the undiscov- 
ered country. And as it is borne forward 
on its way, traversing it knows not whether 
infinity of space muhiphed, or infinitesimal- 
ness of space divided, it is suddenly arrested 
by the AngeFs song, in which he tells in 
heart-subduing melodies the varied his- 
tory of his client: his high destiny, his 
fallen state, his costly repurchase, his dreary 
life-long fray, and relentless fight with the 
foe, his wonderful nature — a strange com- 
posite of heaven and earth, a nature w^hich 
the Guardian Angel alone among Angels 
can comprehend. By the drinking in of this 
heavenly music the Soul becomes 

So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed. 
With such a full content, and with a sense 
So apprehensive and discriminant, 
As no temptation can intoxicate. 

Paragraph III. — The Soul now fully at 
home in the Angel's company, would have 
nothing but to speak with him for speaking's 
sake. It raises various questions W'hich are 
answered and explained by the Angel, who 



THE FLIGHT OF THE SOUL 1 9 

condescendingly assumes the role of inter- 
preter. Two misapprehensions are cleared 
up, one regarding the nature of eternity, 
where 

. . . intervals in their succession 

Are measured by the hving thought alone, 

And time is not a common property ; 

the other regarding the strange disappear- 
ance of its one-time fear and dread of having 
to meet the awful Judge. 

Paragraph IV. — As the Soul and the An- 
gel approach the judgment court, they hear 
the fierce hubbub raised by the demons 
prowling about the entrance, who mali- 
ciously heap all manner of evil names upon 
God and man, and contemptuously cast their 
venom of abuse on the Saint who gains 
the guerdon which they have forfeited. The 
Soul is much surprised at their impotence 
to harm; but the Angel explains that even 
on earth those fallen ones could show so 
majestical only because man had a traitor 
nestling close at home — his inborn evil 
inclinations. 



20 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

The state of the disembodied Soul is next 
portrayed. Bereft of all the senses, the Soul 
now lives in a world of signs and types, 
wrapped and swathed around in dreams. 

Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical. 

Its longing for one glimpse of the Most Fair, 
ere it plunges into the avenging flames of 
Purgatory, is neither vain nor rash; yet 
that sight will not only gladden but likewise 
pierce and burn. 

Paragraph V. — While the Angel is mak- 
ing it clear to the Soul by a concrete example 
what in its present condition its desire to 
see God implies, they enter the House of 
Judgment, — of which every smallest por- 
tion. 

Cornice, or frieze, or bakistrade, or stair, 
The very pavement is made up of life — 
Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings. 
Who hymn their Maker's praise continually. 

These Angelicals, formed into choirs, sing 
of creation, original justice, the fall and re- 
demption ; and tell, as only an Angel's death- 
less fire, an Angel's reach of thought can 



THE FLIGHT OF THE SOUL 21 

tell, of the infinite display of God's victori- 
ous grace, of the triumph God has wrought, 

. . . that He who smote 
In man for man the foe, 
The double agony in man 
For man should undergo. 

The Angel further explains the nature of 
the Soul's approaching agony, when it shall 
be smitten from the face of the Incarnate 
God with a double pain — 

The longing for Him when it sees Him not, 
The shame of self at thought of seeing Him, 

which will be its " veriest, sharpest purga- 
tory." 

Paragraph VI. — They pass the gate and 
come into the veiled presence of God. Just 
then come floating up from earth the echoes 
of voices of interceding friends, while the 
Angel of Christ's Agony, who '' saw the 
Creator reel amid that solitary fight in the 
garden shade," pleads with the Judge in a 
litany calm and sweetly pathetic. The Soul 
is judged as with the intemperate energy 
of love it flies to the dear feet of Em- 
manuel; but before it reaches them it is 



22 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

seized and scorched by the flame of the 
Everlasting Love, consumed yet quickened 
by the glance of God. The happy suffering 
Soul breathes the touching prayer : — 

Take me away, and in the lowest deep 

There let me be, 
And there in hope the lone night watches keep 

Told out for me. 

Paragraph VII. — The Angel bears the 
Soul away through the gates of the Golden 
Prison, out of whose depths the sad yet 
hopeful strain of the Psalm is heard: 
" Lord, Thou hast been our" refuge in every 
generation." He lovingly dips his precious 
burden in the lake, giving his charge to the 
keeping of the Angels of Purgatory* and 
hovering over the penal waters which clo'se 
in upon the dearly ransomed Soul as it sinks 
'' deep, deeper into the dim distance," he 
speaks his tender parting words : 

Farewell, but not for ever! brother dear, 
Be brave and patient on thy bed of sorrow ; 
Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here, 
And I will come and wake thee on the morrow. 



THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

§ I 

Gerontius 

JESU, MARIA — I am near to death, 

And Thou art caUing- me; I know it now 
Not by the token of this faltering breath, 

This chill at heart, this dampness on my 
brow, 
(Jesu, have mercy ! Mary, pray for me!) s 

'Tis this new feeling, never felt before, 
(Be with me. Lord, in my extremity!) 

That I am going, that I am no more. 
'Tis this strange innermost abandonment, 

(Lover of souls! great God! I look to 
Thee,) lo 

This emptying out of each constituent 

And natural force, by which I come to be. 
Pray for me, O my friends ; a visitant 

Is knocking his dire summons at my door. 
The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt, ^s 

Has never, never come to me before ; 



24 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

'Tis death, — O loving friends, your 

prayers ! — 'tis he ! . . . 
As though my very being had given way, 

As though I was no more a substance now. 
And could fall back on nought to be my stay, 20 

(Help, loving Lord! Thou my sole 
Refuge, Thou,) 
And turn no whither, but must needs decay 

And drop from out the universal frame 
Into that shapeless, scopeless, blank abyss. 

That utter nothingness, of which I came : 25 
This is it that has come to pass in me; 

Oh horror! this it is, my dearest, this; 
So pray for me, my friends, who have not 
strength to pray. 

Assistants 
Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, Kyrie eleison. 
Holy Mary, pray for him. 30 

All holy Angels, pray for him. 
Choirs of the righteous, pray for him. 
Holy Abraham, pray for him. 
St. John Baptist, St. Joseph, pray for him. 
St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Andrew, St. John, ss 
All Apostles, all Evangelists, pray for him. 



PARAGRAPH ONE 25 

All holy Disciples of the Lord, pray for him. 

All holy Innocents, pray for him. 

All holy Martyrs, all holy Confessors, 

All holy Hermits, all holy Virgins, 40 

All ye Saints of God, pray for him. 

Gerontiiis 
Rouse thee, my fainting soul, and play the 
man; 

And through such waning span 
Of life and thought as still has to be trod, 

Prepare to meet thy God. 4S 

And while the storm of that bewilderment 

Is for a season spent, 
And, ere afresh the ruin on thee fall. 

Use well the interval. 

Assistants 
Be merciful, be gracious ; spare him, Lord. 50 
Be merciful, be gracious ; Lord, deliver him. 
From the sins that are past ; 

From Thy frown and Thine ire; 
From the perils of dying; 
From any complying S5 

With sin, or denying 
His God, or relying 



26 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

On self, at the last; 

From the nethermost fire; 
From all that is evil ; 60 

From power of the devil; 
Thy servant deliver, 
For once and forever. 

By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross, 

Rescue him from endless loss; 6^ 

By Thy death and burial. 

Save him from a final fall ; 

By Thy rising from the tomb, 
By Thy mounting up above, 
By the Spirit's gracious love, 70 

Save him in the day of doom. 

Ger on tilts 

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, 

De profundis oro te, 
Miserere, Judex mens, 

Parce mihi, Domine. 7S 

Firmly I believe and truly 

God is Three, and God is One; 
And I next acknowledge duly 

Manhood taken by the Son. 



PARAGRAPH ONE 27 

And I trust and hope most fully 80 

In that Manhood crucified ; 
And each thought and deed unruly 

Do to death, as He has died. 
Simply to His grace and wholly 
Light and life and strength belong, 85 
And I love, supremely, solely, 

Him the holy, Him the strong. 
Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, 

De profundis oro te. 
Miserere, Judex mens, 90 

Parce mihi, Domine. 
And I hold in veneration. 

For the love of Him alone. 
Holy Church, as His creation. 

And her teachings, as His own. 95 
And I take with joy whatever 

Now besets me, pain or fear, 
And with a strong will I sever 

All the ties which bind me here. 
Adoration aye be given, loc 

With and through the angelic 
host. 
To the God of earth and heaven. 

Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 



28 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Sanctus fortis, Sanctus Deus, 

De profundis oro te, 105 

Miserere, Judex meus, 
Mortis in discrimine. 

I can no more ; for now it comes again, 

That sense of ruin, which is worse than pain, 

That masterful negation and collapse "o 

Of all that makes me man; as though I bent 

Over the dizzy brink 

Of some sheer infinite descent; 

Or worse, as though 

Down, down for ever I was falling through "S 

The solid framework of created things, 

And needs must sink and sink 

Into the vast abyss. And, crueller still, 

A fierce and restless fright begins to fill 

The mansion of my soul. And, worse and 

worse, 120 

wSome bodily form of ill 
Floats on the wind, with many a loathsome 

curse 
Tainting the hallowed air, and laughs, and 

flaps 
Its hideous wings, 
And makes me wild with horror and dismay. 125 



PARAGRAPH ONE 29 

O Jesu, help ! pray for me, Mary, pray ! 
Some angel, Jesu ! such as came to Thee 
In Thine own agony. . . . 
Mary, pray for me. Joseph, pray for me. 
Mary, pray for me. ^30 

Assistants 
Rescue him, O Lord, in this his evil hour. 
As of old so many by Thy gracious power : — 

(Amen.) 
Enoch and Elias from the common doom; 

(Amen.) 
Noe from the waters in a saving home; 

(Amen.) 
Abraham from th' abounding guilt of Hea- 
thenesse; (Amen.) ^35 
Job from all his multiform and fell distress; 

(Amen.) 
Isaac, when his father's knife was raised to 

slay; (Amen.) 
Lot from burning Sodom on its judgment 

day; (Amen.) 
Moses from the land of bondage and despair; 

(Amen.) 
Daniel from the hungry lions in their lair; 

(Amen.) ho 



30 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

And the Children Three amid the furnace- 
flame; (Amen.) 

Chaste Susanna from the slander and the 
shame; (Amen.) 

David from Golia and the wrath of Saul; 
(Amen.) 

And the two Apostles from their prison- 
thrall; (Amen.) 

Thecla from her torments; (Amen.) ms 

— so, to show Thy power, 

Rescue this Thy servant in his evil hour. 

Gerontius 
Novissima hora est ; and I fain would sleep. 
The pain has wearied me. . . . Into Thy 

hands, 
O Lord, into Thy hands . . . 

The Priest 
Proficiscere, anima Christiana, de hoc 

mundo ! 15° 

Go forth upon thy journey. Christian soul ! 
Go from this world! Go, in the Name of 

God, 
The Omnipotent Father, who created thee! 
Go, in the Name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, 



PARAGRAPH TWO 31 

Son of the living God, who bled for thee ! iss 
Go, in the Name of the Holy Spirit, who 
Hath been poured out on thee! Go, in the 

name 
Of Angels and Archangels; in the name 
Of Thrones and Dominations; in the name 
Of Princedoms and of Powers; and in the 

name i6o 

Of Cherubim and Seraphim, go forth! 
Go, in the name of Patriarchs and Prophets ; 
And of Apostles and Evangelists, 
Of Martyrs and Confessors; in the name 
Of holy Monks and Hermits ; in the name 165 
Of holy Virgins; and all Saints of God, 
Both men and women, go ! Go on thy course ! 
And may thy place to-day be found in peace, 
And may thy dwelling be the Holy Mount 
Of Sion : — in the name of Christ, our 

Lord. 170 



Soul of Gerontius 
I went to sleep; and now I am refreshed, 
A strange refreshment : for I feel in me 
An inexpressive lightness, and a sense 



32 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Of freedom, as I were at length myself, 
And ne'er had been before. How still it is ! 
I hear no more the busy beat of time, 
No, nor my fluttering breath, nor struggling 

pulse ; 
Nor does one moment differ from the 

next. 
I had a dream; yes : — someone softly said 
'' He 's gone " ; and then a sigh went round 

the room. lo 

And then I surely heard a priestly voice 
Cry '' Subvenite " ; and they knelt in prayer. 
I seem to hear him still ; but thin and low, 
And fainter and more faint the accents come, 
As at an ever-widening interval. ^5 

Ah! whence is this? What is this severance? 
This silence pours a solitariness 
Into the very essence of my soul ; 
And the deep rest, so soothing and so sweet. 
Hath something too of sternness and of pain. 20 
For it drives back my thoughts upon their 

spring 
By a strange introversion, and perforce 
I now begin to feed upon myself, 
Because I have nought else to feed upon. 



PARAGRAPH TWO 33 

Am I alive or dead? I am not dead, 25 

But in the body still ; for I possess 

A sort of confidence which clings to me, 

That each particular organ holds its place 

As heretofore, combining with the rest 

Into one symmetry, that wraps me round, 30 

And makes me man; and surely I could 

move. 
Did I but will it, every part of me. 
And yet I cannot to my sense bring home 
By very trial, that I have the power. 
'Tis strange ; I cannot stir a hand or foot, ^s 
I cannot make my fingers or my lips 
By mutual pressure witness each to each. 
Nor by the eyelid's instantaneous stroke 
Assure myself I have a body still. 
Nor do I know my very attitude, 40 

Nor if I stand, or lie, or sit, or kneel. 

So much I know, not knowing how I know, 
That the vast universe, where I have dwelt, 
Is quitting me, or I am quitting it. 
Or I or it is rushing on the wings 4S 

Of light or lightning on an onward course, 
And we e'en now are million miles apart. 



34 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Yet ... is this peremptory severance 
Wrought out in lengthening measurements 

of space 
Which grow and multiply by speed and time ? so 
Or am I traversing infinity 
By endless subdivision, hurrying back 
From finite towards infinitesimal, 
Thus dying out of the expansed world? 

Another marvel : someone has me fast 55 

Within his ample palm; 'tis not a grasp 

Such as they use on earth, but all around 

Over the surface of my subtle being, 

As though I were a sphere, and capable 

To be accosted thus, a uniform 60 

And gentle pressure tells me I am not 

Self -moving, but borne forward on my way. 

And hark! I hear a singing; yet in sooth 

I cannot of that music rightly say 

Whether I hear, or touch, or taste the tones. 65 

Oh what a heart-subduing melody! 

Angel 
My work is done, 
My task is o'er, 
And so I come, 



PARAGRAPH TWO 35 

Taking it home, 70 

For the crown is won, 
Alleluia, 
For evermore. 

My Father gave 

In charge to me 7S 

This child of earth 
E'en from its birth, 
To serve and save. 
Alleluia, 
And saved is he. 80 

This child of clay 
To me was given. 
To rear and train 
By sorrow and pain 
In the narrow way, 85 

Alleluia, 
From earth to heaven. 

Soul 

It is a member of that family 

Of wondrous beings, who, ere the worlds 

were made, 
Millions of ages back, have stood around 90 



36 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

The throne of God : — he never has known 

sin; 
But through those cycles all but infinite, 
Has had a strong and pure celestial life, 
And bore to gaze on th' unveiled face of God, 
And drank from the eternal Fount of truth, 95 
And served Him with a keen ecstatic love. 
Hark! he begins again. 

Angel 

O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height. 

But most in man, how wonderful Thou art ! 

With what a love, what soft persuasive 

might i°° 

Victorious o'er the stubborn fleshly heart. 
Thy tale complete of saints Thou dost 

provide. 
To fill the thrones which angels lost 
through pride! 

He lay a grovelling babe upon the ground. 
Polluted in the blood of his first sire, 105 

With his whole essence shattered and un- 
sound. 
And coiled around his heart a demon dire, 



PARAGRAPH TWO 37 

Which was not of his nature, but had skill 
To bind and form his opening mind to ill. 

Then was I sent from heaven to set right no 

The balance in his soul of truth and sin, 
And I have waged a long relentless fight. 
Resolved that death-environed spirit to 

win. 
Which from its fallen state, when all was 

lost, 
Had been repurchased at so dread a cost. "S 

Oh, what a shifting parti-colored scene 
Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay, 

Of recklessness and penitence, has been 
The history of that dreary, life-long fray ! 
And oh, the grace to nerve him and to lead, 120 
How patient, prompt, and lavish at his 
need! 

O man, strange composite of heaven and 

earth ! 
Majesty dwarfed to baseness! fragrant 

flower 
Running to poisonous seed! and seeming 

worth 



38 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Cloking corruption ! weakness mastering 

power! 125 

Who never art so near to crime and shame, 
As when thou hast achieved some deed of 
name ; — 

How should ethereal natures comprehend 

A thing made up of spirit and of clay, 
Were we not tasked to nurse it and to tend, 130 
Linked one to one throughout its mortal 

day? 
More than the Seraph in his height of 

place. 
The Angel-guardian knows and loves the 
ransomed race. 

Soul 

Now know I surely that I am at length 

Out of the body ; had I part with earth, 135 

I never could have drunk those accents in, 

And not have worshipped as a god the voice 

That was so musical ; but now I am 

So whole of heart, so calm, so self-possessed. 

With such a full content, and with a sense 140 

So apprehensive and discriminant, 

As no temptation can intoxicate. 



PARAGRAPH THREE 39 

Nor have I even terror at the thought 
That I am clasped by such a sainthness. 

Angel 

All praise to Him, at whose sublime decree us 

The last are first, the first become the last; 

By whom the suppliant prisoner is set free, 

By whom proud first-borns from their 

thrones are cast; 
\Mi(5 raises Mary to be Queen of Heaven, 
While Lucifer is left, condemned and un- 
forgiven. ^5© 

§ 3 

Soul 
I will address him. Mighty one, my Lord, 
My Guardian Spirit, all hail ! 

Angel 

All hail, my child ! 
My child and brother, hail! what wouldest 
thou? 

Soul 

I would have nothing but to speak with thee s 
For speaking's sake. I wish to hold with thee 



40 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Conscious communion ; though I fain would 

know 
A maze of things, were it but meet to ask, 
And not a curiousness. 

Angel 

You cannot now 
Cherish a wish which ought not to be wished. lo 

Soul • 

Then I will speak. I ever had believed 
That on the moment when the struggling 

soul 
Quitted its mortal case, forthwith it fell 
Under the awful Presence of its God, 
There to be judged and sent to its own place. 15 
What lets me now from going to my Lord? 

Angel 

Thou art not let ; but with extremest speed 
Art hurrying to the Just and Holy Judge : 
For scarcely art thou disembodied yet. 
Divide a moment, as men measure time, 20 

Into its million-million-millionth part. 
Yet even less than that the interval 



PARAGRAPH THREE 41 

Since thou didst leave the body; and the 

priest 
Cried " Subvenite/^ and they fell to prayer; 
Nay, scarcely yet have they begun to pray. 25 
For spirits and men by different standards 

mete 
The less and greater in the flow of time. 
By sun and moon, primeval ordinances — 
By stars which rise and set harmoniously — 
By the recurring seasons, and the swing, 3° 
This way and that, of the suspended rod 
Precise and punctual, men divide the hours, 
Equal, continuous, for their common use. 
Not so with us in the immaterial world ; 
But intervals in their succession 35 

Are measured by the living thought alone, 
And grow or wane with its intensity. 
And time is not a common property; 
But what is long is short, and swift is slow. 
And near is distant, as received and grasped 40 
By this mind and by that, and every one 
Is standard of his own chronology. 
And memory lacks its natural resting-points 
Of years, and centuries, and periods. 
It is thy very energy of thought as 

Which keeps thee from thy God. 



42 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Soul 

Dear Angel, say, 
Why have I now no fear at meeting Him? 
Along my earthly life, the thought of death 
And judgment was to me most terrible. 
I had it aye before me, and I saw so 

The Judge severe e'en in the crucifix. 
Now that the hour is come, my fear is fled ; 
And at this balance of my destiny. 
Now close upon me, I can forward look 
With a serenest joy. 55 

Angel 

It is because 
Then thou didst fear, that now thou dost not 

fear. 
Thou hast forestalled the agony, and so 
For thee the bitterness of death is past. 
Also, because already in thy soul 
The judgment is begun. That day of doom, 60 
One and the same for the collected world, — 
That solemn consummation for all flesh, 
Is, in the case of each, anticipate 
Upon his death ; and, as the last great day 
In the particular judgment is rehearsed, 6s 



PARAGRAPH FOUR 43 

So now, too, ere thou comest to the Throne, 
A presage falls upon thee, as a ray 
Straight from the Judge, expressive of thy 

lot. 
That calm and joy uprising in thy soul 
Is first-fruit to thee of thy recompense, 70 
And heaven begun. 

§4 

Soul 

But hark ! upon my sense 
Comes a fierce hubbub, which would make 

me fear 
Could I be frighted. 

Angel 

We are now arrived 
Close on the judgment court; that sullen 

howl 5 

Is from the demons who assemble there. 
It is the middle region, where of old 
Satan appeared among the sons of God, 
To cast his jibes and scofifs at holy Job. 
So now his legions throng the vestibule, lo 

Hungry and wild, to claim their property, 
And gather souls for hell. Hist to their cry. 



44 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Soul 
How sour and how uncouth a dissonance ! 

Demons 
Low-born clods 

Of brute earth is 

They aspire 
To become gods, 

By a new birth, 
And an extra grace, 

And a score of merits, 20 

As if aught 
Could stand in place 

Of the high thought. 
And the glance of fire 
Of the great spirits, 25 

The powers blest, 

The lords by right, 
The primal owners. 

Of the proud dwelling 
And realm of light, — 30 

Dispossessed, 

Aside thrust. 

Chucked down 

By the sheer might 



PARAGRAPH FOUR 45 

Of a despot's will, 3S 

Of a tyrant's frown, 
Who after expelling 
Their hosts, gave, 
Triumphant still. 
And still unjust, 40 

Each forfeit crown 
To psalm-droners, 
And canting groaners, 

To every slave. 
And pious cheat, 4S 

And crawling knave. 
Who licked the dust 

Under his feet. 

Angel 
It is the restless panting of their being; 
Like beasts of prey, who, caged within their 

bars, so 

In a deep hideous purring have their life, 
And an incessant pacing to and fro. 

Demons 
The mind bold 

And independent, 

The purpose free, ss 



46 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

So we are told, 
Must not think 

To have the ascendant. 

What 's a samt? 
One whose breath 60 

Doth the air taint 
Before his death; 

A bundle of bones, 
Which fools adore, 

Ha! ha! 65 

When life is o'er; 
Which rattle and stink, 

E'en in the flesh. 
We cry his pardon ! 

No flesh hath he ; 70 

Ha! ha! 
For it hath died, 

'Tis crucified 
Day by day, 
Afresh, afresh, 75 

Ha! ha! 
That holy clay. 
Ha! ha! 
This g-ains guerdon. 

So priestlings prate. 



80 



PARAGRAPH FOUR 47 

Ha! ha! 
Before the Judge, 

And pleads and atones 
For spite and grudge, 

And bigot mood, 85 

And envy and hate, 

And greed of blood. 

Soul 

How impotent they are ! and yet on earth 
They have repute for wondrous power and 

skill; 
And books describe, how that the very face 90 
Of the Evil One, if seen, would have a force 
Even to freeze the blood, and choke the life 
Of him who saw it. 

Angel 

In thy trial-state 
Thou hadst a traitor nestling close at home, 
Connatural, who with the powers of hell 95 
Was leagued, and of thy senses kept the keys. 
And to that deadliest foe unlocked thy heart. 
And therefore is it, in respect to man. 
Those fallen ones show so majestical. 



48 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

But, when some child of grace, angel or 

saint, loo 

Pure and upright in his integrity 
Of nature, meets the demons on their raid. 
They scud away as cowards from the fight. 
Nay, oft hath holy hermit in his cell. 
Not yet disburdened of mortality, 105 

Mocked at their threats and warlike over- 
tures; 
Or, dying, when they swarmed, like flies 

around, 
Defied them, and departed to his Judge. 

Demons 

Virtue and vice, 

A knave's pretence, no 

Tis all the same; 
Ha! ha! 

Dread of hell-fire. 
Of the venomous flame, 

A coward's plea. us 
Give him his price. 

Saint though he be. 
Ha! ha! 
From shrewd good sense 



PARAGRAPH FOUR 49 

He '11 slave for hire 120 

Ha! ha! 

And does but aspire 
To the heaven above 

With sordid aim, 
And not from love. 125 

Ha! ha! 

Soul 
I see not those false spirits ; shall I see 
My dearest Master, when I reach His 

throne ; 
Or hear, at least. His awful judgment-word 
With personal intonation, as I now 130 

Hear thee, not see thee. Angel? Hitherto 
All has been darkness since I left the earth; 
Shall I remain thus sight-bereft all through 
My penance-time? If so, how comes it then 
That I have hearing still, and taste, and 

touch, 135 

Yet not a glimmer of that princely sense 
Which binds ideas in one, and makes them 

live? 

Angel 

Nor touch, nor taste, nor hearing hast thou 
now; 



50 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Thou livest in a world of signs and types, 
The presentations of most holy truths, 140 

Living and strong, which now encompass 

thee. 
A disembodied soul, thou hast by right 
No converse with aught else beside thyself; 
But, lest so stern a solitude should load 
And break thy being, in mercy are vouch- 
safed 14s 
Some lower measures of perception, 
Which seem to thee, as though through 

channels brought. 
Through ear, or nerves, or palate, which are 

gone. 
And thou art wrapped and swathed around 

in dreams, 
Dreams that are true, yet enigmatical ; 150 

For the belongings of thy present state. 
Save through such symbols, come not home 

to thee. 
And thus thou tell'st of space, and time, and 

size. 
Of fragrant, solid, bitter, musical, 
Of fire, and of refreshment after fire; 15s 

As (let me use similitude of earth. 



PARAGRAPH FOUR 51 

To aid thee in the knowledge thou dost 

ask) — 
As ice which blisters may be said to burn. 
Nor hast thou now extension, with its parts 
Correlative, — long habit cozens thee, — i6o 
Nor power to move thyself, nor limbs to 

move. 
Hast thou not heard of those, who after loss 
Of hand or foot, still cried that they had 

pains 
In hand or foot, as though they had it still ? 
So is it now with thee, who hast not lost 165 
Thy hand or foot, but all which made up 

man. 
So will it be, until the joyous day 
Of resurrection, when thou wilt regain 
All thou hast lost, new-made and glorified. 
How, even now, the consummated Saints 170 
See God in heaven, I may not explicate. 
Meanwhile, let it suffice thee to possess 
Such means of converse as are granted thee, 
Though, till that Beatific Vision, thou art 

blind ; 
For e'en thy purgatory, which comes like fire, 175 
Is fire without its light. 



52 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Soul 

His will be done ! 
I am not worthy e'er to see again 
The face of day; far less His countenance 
Who is the very sun. Nathless, in life, 
When I looked forward to my purgatory, iSo 
It ever was my solace to believe 
That, ere I plunged amid th' avenging flame, 
I had one sight of Him to strengthen me. 

Angel 

Nor rash nor vain is that presentiment; 
Yes, — for one moment thou shalt see thy 

Lord. i8s 

Thus will it be : what time thou art arraigned 
Before the dread tribunal, and thy lot 
Is cast forever, should it be to sit 
On His right hand among His pure elect. 
Then sight, or that which to the soul is sight, 190 
As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee. 
And thou shalt see, amid the dark profound. 
Whom thy soul loveth, and would fain ap- 
proach, — 
One moment; but thou knowest not, my 
child, 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 53 

What thou dost ask : that sight of the Most 

Fair 19s 

Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too. 

Soul 

Thou speakest darkly, Angel ! and an awe 
Falls on me, and a fear lest I be rash. 

Angel 

There was a mortal, who is now above 
In the mid glory: he, when near to die, 200 
Was given communion with the Crucified, — 
Such, that the Master's very wounds were 

stamped 
Upon his flesh ; and, from the agony 
Which thrilled through body and soul in that 

embrace, 
Learn that the flame of the Everlasting Love 205 
Doth burn ere it transform. . . . 

§ 5 

. . . Hark to those sounds ! 
They come of tender beings angelical. 
Least and most childlike of the sons of God. 



54 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

First Choir of Angelic als 

Praise to the Holiest in the height, 

And in the depth be praise: s 

In all His words most wonderful; 
Most sure in all His ways ! 

To us His elder race He gave 

To battle and to win, 
Without the chastisement of pain, ^^ 

Without the soil of sin. 

The younger son He willed to be 

A marvel in his birth: 
Spirit and flesh his parents were ; 

His home was heaven and earth. is 

The Eternal blessed His child, and armed. 

And sent him hence afar, 
To serve as champion in the field 

Of elemental war. 

To be His Viceroy in the world 20 

Of matter, and of sense; 
Upon the frontier, towards the foe, 

A resolute defence. 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 55 

Angel 
We now have passed the gate, and are within 
The House of Judgment; and whereas on 

earth ^s 

Temples and palaces are formed of parts 
Costly and rare, but all material, 
So in the world of spirits nought is found, 
To mould withal and form into a whole, 
But what is immaterial ; and thus 3© 

The smallest portions of this edifice. 
Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair, 
The very pavement is made up of life — 
Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings, 
Who hymn their Maker's praise continually. 35 

Second Choir of Angelicals 

Praise to the Holiest in the height, 

And in the depth be praise : 
In all His words most wonderful; 

Most sure in all His ways ! 

Woe to thee, man ! for he was found 40 

A recreant in the fight; 
And lost his heritage of heaven, 

And fellowship with light. 



56 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Above him now the angry sky, 

Around, the tempest's din; 45 

Who once had Angels for his friends, 

Had but the brutes for kin. 

O man ! a savage kindred they ; 

To flee that monster brood 
He scaled the seaside cave, and clomb so 

The giants of the w^ood. 

With now a fear, and now a hope. 
With aids which chance supplied. 

From youth to eld, from sire to son, 

He lived, and toiled, and died. 55 

He dreed his penance age by age ; 

And step by step began 
Slowly to doff his savage garb 

And be again a man. 

And quickened by the Almighty's breath, 6o 

And chastened by His rod. 
And taught by Angel-visitings, 

At length he sought his God; 

And learned to call upon His name, 

And in His faith create 6s 

A household and a fatherland, 
A city and a state. 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 57 

Glory to Him who from the mire, 

In patient length of days, 
Elaborated into life 7° 

A people to His praise ! 

Soul 
The sound is like the rushing of the wind — 
The summer wind among the lofty pines; 
Swelling and dying, echoing round about, 
Now here, now distant, wild and beautiful ;7S 
While, scattered from the branches it has 

stirred. 
Descend ecstatic odors. 

Third Choir of Angelic als 

Praise to the Holiest in the height. 

And in the depth be praise : 
In all His words most wonderful; 80 

Most sure in all His ways ! 

The Angels, as beseemingly 

To spirit-kind was given, 
At once were tried and perfected, 

And took their seats in heaven. 85 

For them no twilight or eclipse ; 
No growth and no decay : 



58 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Twas hopeless, all-ingulfing night, 
Or beatific day. 

But to the younger race there rose 9° 

A hope upon its fall ; 
And slowly, surely, gracefully, 

The morning dawned on all. 

And ages, opening out, divide 

The precious and the base, 95 

And from the hard and sullen mass 

Mature the heirs of grace. 

O man ! albeit the quickening ray. 

Lit from his second birth. 
Makes him at length what once he was, loo 

And heaven grows out of earth ; 

Yet still between that earth and heaven — 

His journey and his goal — 
A double agony awaits 

His body and his soul. ^°s 

A double debt he has to pay — 

The forfeit of his sins : 
The chill of death is past, and now 

The penance-fire begins. 

Glory to Him, who evermore "o 

By truth and justice reigns ; 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 59 

Who tears the soul from out its case, 
And burns away its stains! 

Angel 
They sing of thy approaching agony, 
Which thou so eagerly didst question of : us 
It is the face of the Incarnate God 
Shall smite thee with that keen and subtle 

pain; 
And yet the memory which it leaves will be 
A sovereign febrifuge to heal the wound ; 
And yet withal it will the wound provoke, 120 
And aggravate and widen it the more. 

Soul 
Thou speakest mysteries; still methinks I 

know 
To disengage the tangle of thy words : 
Yet rather would I hear thy angel voice, 
Than for myself be thy interpreter. 125 

Angel 
When then — if such thy lot — thou seest 

thy Judge, 
The sight of Him will kindle in thy heart 
All tender, gracious, reverential thoughts. 



6o THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Thou wilt be sick with love, and yearn for 

Him, 
And feel as though thou couldst but pity 

Him, 130 

That one so sweet should e'er have placed 

Himself 
At disadvantage such, as to be used 
So vilely by a being so vile as thee. 
There is a pleading in His pensive eyes 
Will pierce thee to the quick, and trouble 

thee. us 

And thou wilt hate and loathe thyself ; for, 

though 
Now sinless, thou wilt feel that thou hast 

sinned. 
As never thou didst feel ; and wilt desire 
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight : 
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell 140 
Within the beauty of His countenance. 
And these two pains, so counter and so 

keen, — 
The longing for Him, when thou seest Him 

not; 
The shame of self at thought of seeing 

Him, — 
Will be thy veriest, sharpest purgatory. us 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 6l 

Soul 
My soul is in my hand : I have no fear, — 
In His dear might prepared for weal or woe. 
But hark ! a grand mysterious harmony : 
It floods me like the deep and solemn sound 
Of many waters. 

Angel 

We have gained the stairs 150 
Which rise towards the Presence-chamber; 

there 
A band of mighty Angels keep the way 
On either side, and hymn the Incarnate God. 

Angels of the Sacred Stair 

Father, whose goodness none can know, but 
they 
W^ho see Thee face to face, 155 

By man hath come the infinite display 

Of Thy victorious grace; 
But fallen man — the creature of a day — 

Skills not that love to trace. 
It needs, to tell the triumph Thou hast 

wrought, 160 

An Angel's deathless fire, an Angel's reach 
of thought. 



62 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

It needs that very Angel who with awe, 

Amid the garden shade, 
The great Creator in His sickness saw, 

Soothed by a creature's aid, 165 

And agonized, as victim of the Law 

Which He Himself had made ; 
For who can praise Him in His depth and 

height, 
But he who saw Him reel amid that solitary 
fight? 

Soul 

Hark ! for the lintels of the presence-gate 170 
Are vibrating and echoing back the strain. 

Fourth Choir of Angelicals 
Praise to the Holiest in the height. 

And in the depth be praise : 
In all His words most wonderful; 

Most sure in all His ways ! 17s 

The foe blasphemed the Holy Lord, 

As if He reckoned ill, 
In that He placed His puppet man 

The frontier place to fill. 

For even in his best estate, 180 

With amplest gifts endued. 



PARAGRAPH FIVE 63 

A sorry sentinel was he, 
A being of flesh and blood. 

As though a thing, who for his help 

Must needs possess a wife, ^^s 

Could cope with those proud rebel hosts 
Who had angelic life. 

And when, by blandishment of Eve, 

That earth-born Adam fell, 
He shrieked in triumph, and he cried, 190 

"A sorry sentinel; 

" The Maker by His word is bound, 

Escape or cure is none ; 
He must abandon to his doom. 

And slay His darling son." 19s 

Angel 
And now^ the threshold, as we traverse it, 
Utters aloud its glad responsive chant. 

Fifth Choir of Angelicals 
Praise to the HoHest in the height. 

And in the depth be praise : 
In all His words most wonderful; 200 

Most sure in all His ways ! 



64 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

O loving wisdom of our God ! 

When all was sin and shame, 
A second Adam to the fight 

And to the rescue came. 205 

O wisest love ! that flesh and blood 

Which did in Adam fail, 
Should strive afresh against the foe, 

Should strive and should prevail. 

And that a higher gift than grace 210 

Should flesh and blood refine, 

God's Presence and His very Self, 
And Essence all divine. 

O generous love ! that He who smote 
In man for man the foe, 215 

The double agony in man 
For man should undergo ; 

And in the garden secretly. 

And on the cross on high. 
Should teach His brethren and inspire 220 

To suffer and to die. 

§ 6 
Angel 
Thy judgment now is near, for we are come 
Into the veiled presence of our God. 



PARAGRAPH SIX 65 

Soul 
I hear the voices that I left on earth. 

Angel 
It is the voice of friends around thy bed, 
Who say the " Subvenite " with the priest. s 
Hither the echoes come; before the Throne 
Stands the great Angel of the Agony, 
The same who strengthened Him, what time 

He knelt 
Lone in the garden shade, bedewed with 

blood. 
That Angel best can plead with Him for all lo 
Tormented souls, the dying and the dead. 

Angel of the Agony 
Jesu ! by that shuddering dread which fell on 

Thee; 
Jesu! by that cold dismay which sickened 

Thee; 
Jesu ! by that pang of heart which thrilled in 

Thee; 
Jesu! by that mount of sins which crippled 

Thee; 15 

Jesu! by that sense of guilt which stifled 

Thee; 



66 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Jesu ! by that innocence which girdled Thee ; 
Jesu ! by that sanctity which reigned in Thee ; 
Jesu! by that Godhead which was one with 

Thee; 
Jesu! spare these souls which are so dear to 

Thee ; 20 

Who in prison, calm and patient, wait for 

Thee; 
Hasten, Lord, their hour, and bid them come 

to Thee, 
To that glorious Home, where they shall 

ever gaze on Thee. 

Soul 
I go before my Judge. Ah ! . . . 

Angel 

. . . Praise to His Name ! 25 
The eager spirit has darted from my hold. 
And, with the intemperate energy of love. 
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel ; 
But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity. 
Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes 30 
And circles round the Crucified, has seized. 
And scorched, and shrivelled it; and now it 
lies 



PARAGRAPH SIX 67 

Passive and still before the awful Throne. 
O happy, suffering soul ! for it is safe, 
Consumed, yet quickened, by the glance of 

God. 35 

Soul 

Take me away, and in the lowest deep 

There let me be. 
And there in hope the lone night-watches 
keep. 

Told out for me. 
There, motionless and happy in my pain, 40 

Lone, not forlorn, — 
There will I sing my sad perpetual strain, 

Until the morn. 
There will I sing, and soothe my stricken 
breast, 

Which ne'er can cease 4S 

To throb, and pine, and languish, till possest 

Of its Sole Peace. 
There will I sing my absent Lord and 
Love : — 

Take me away, 
That sooner I may rise, and go above, 50 

And see Him in the truth of everlasting day. 



68 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

§7 

Angel 
Now let the golden prison ope its gates, 
Making sweet music, as each fold revolves 
Upon its ready hinge. And ye great powers, 
Angels of Purgatory, receive from me 
My charge, a precious soul, until the day, 
When, from all bond and forfeiture released, 
I shall reclaim it for the courts of light. 

Souls in Purgatory 

1. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge: in 

every generation ; 

2. Before the hills were born, and the 

world was : from age to age Thou art 
God. 

3. Bring us not. Lord, very low : for Thou 

hast said. Come back again, ye sons 
of Adam. 

4. A thousand years before Thine eyes are 

but as yesterday: and as a watch of 
the night which is come and gone. 

5. The grass springs up in the morning: 

at evening-tide it shrivels up and 
dies. 



PARAGRAPH SEVEN 69 

6. So we fail in Thine anger : and in Thy 

wrath we are troubled. 

7. Thou hast set our sins in Thy sight: 

and our round of days in the light of 
Thy countenance. 

8. Come back, O Lord ! how long : and be 

entreated for Thy servants. 15 

9. In Thy morning we shall be filled with 

Thy mercy: we shall rejoice and be 
in pleasure all our days. 

10. We shall be glad according to the days 

of our humiliation: and the years in 
which we have seen evil. 

11. Look, O Lord, upon Thy servants and 

on Thy work: and direct their 
children. 

12. And let the beauty of the Lord our God 

be upon us; and the work of our 

hands, establish Thou it. 
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son : and 

to the Holy Ghost. ^o 

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever 

shall be: world without end. Amen. 

Angel 
Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul, 



70 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

In my most loving arms I now enfold 

thee, 
And, o'er the penal waters, as they roll, 

I poise thee, and I lower thee, and hold 

thee. 25 

And carefully I dip thee in the lake, 

And thou, without a sob or a resistance, 
Dost through the flood thy rapid passage 
take. 
Sinking deep, deeper, into the dim 
distance. 

Angels, to whom the willing task is given, 30 
Shall tend, and nurse, and lull thee, as 
thou liest; 
And masses on the earth, and prayers in 
heaven, 
Shall aid thee at the Throne of the Most 
Highest. 

Farewell, but not for ever ! brother dear, 
Be brave and patient on thy bed of 
sorrow ; 35 

Swiftly shall pass thy night of trial here. 
And I will come and wake thee on the 
morrow. 



APPRECIATIONS 

The Dream is a rare rendering into Eng- 
lish verse of that high ritual which, from 
the deathbed to the Mass of Supplication, en- 
compasses the faithful soul. It pierces, in- 
deed, beyond the veil, but in strict accordance 
or analogy with what every Catholic holds 
to be there. Hence we shall interpret its 
meaning if we liken it, not to Milton, whose 
supernatural worlds are his peculiar device, 
founded upon heathen rather than Chris- 
tian tradition; nor to Dante, who mingles 
history and landscape from his time and 
travels in the solemn sweet Piirgatorio which 
remains his masterpiece, but to Calderon's 
Autos Sacramentales, at once an allegory 
and an act of faith. . . . The Dream is 
the answer given at length to Lead, kindly 
Light — a revelation of the Unseen, severe 
yet tender, demanding an heroic service, but 
to One who was entirely human; the simple 



72 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Christian truth, set in a mystery almost 
scenic, that it might be the more taking. 

William Barry. 

The Dream of Gerontius was the true 
copestone for Newman to cut and lay on the 
literary and religious work of his whole life. 
Had Dante himself composed The Dream 
as his elegy on the death of some beloved 
friend, it would have been universally re- 
ceived as altogether worthy of his superb 
genius, and it would have been a jewel al- 
together worthy of his peerless crown. 
There is nothing of its kind, outside of the 
Purgatorio and the Paradiso, at all equal to 
The Dream for solemnizing, ennobling, 
and sanctifying power. It is a poem that 
every man should have by heart who has it 
before him to die. 

Alexander Whyte. 

The Dream of Gerontius resembles Dante 
more than any other poetry written since 
the great Tuscan's time. 

Sir Henry Taylor. 



APPRECIATIONS 73 

To my mind The Dream of Gerontius is 
the poem of a man to whom the vision of 
the Christian revelation has at all times been 
more real, more potent to influence action, 
and more powerful to preoccupy the imagi- 
nation than all worldly interests put together. 
Richard H. Hutton. 

Newman's poems are not so well known 
as his prose, but the reader w^ho examines 
the Lyra Apostolica and Verses on Various 
Occasions will find many short poems that 
stir a religious nature profoundly by their 
pure and lofty imagination; and future 
generations may pronounce one of these 
poems — The Dream of Gerontius — to be 
Newman's most enduring work. . . . Both 
in style and in thought The Dream is a 
powerful and original poem, and is worthy 
of attention not only for itself, but, as a 
modern critic suggests, " as a revelation of 
that high spiritual purpose which animated 
Newman's life from beginning to end." 

W. J. Long. 



NOTES ON THE DREAM 

PARAGRAPH I. 

Gerontius. From the Greek yepc^v, an old man. 

Line i. Jesu, Maria. The Latin forms for the 
two sacred names which a Christian invokes most 
frequently in life, and which now in his last ex- 
tremity Gerontius instinctively calls upon. 

10. Lover of souls! . . . Note the firmness of 
the ejaculatory prayers interspersed in the dread 
account of his agony. 

11. This emptying out . . . The soul of Geron- 
tius is gradually disengaging itself and receding 
from the outer senses of the body. 

17. your prayers! ... As one sense after an- 
other grows weaker, he begins to feel his loneliness, 
and asks the prayers of the bystanders. 

28. who have not strength to pray ... In 
his growing dread of falling out into the great 
deep, he again begs the prayers of his friends. 
The urgency of the appeal is emphasized by the 
addition in the metre of an extra foot. 

29. Kyrie Eleison . . . Kupte eKe-qaov, the Greek 
for Lord have mercy. 

42. Rouse thee . . . Having recovered from 



76 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

the first storm of bewilderment, thanks to the 
prayers of the bystanders, Gerontius, summoning 
all his strength, speaks courage to his soul, to 
prepare to meet his God. 

52-63. Interchange and blending of measures. 
See Introd. p. 12. 

72. Sanctus fortis . . . Holy Strong One, Holy 
God — From the depths I pray to Thee — Be Thou 
merciful, my Judge — Spare Thou me, O Lord. 

77. God is Three and God is One. . . . The 
mystery of the Blessed Trinity : God is Three in 
Person, but One in Substance. 

94. Holy Church . . . The teaching body es- 
tablished by Christ to be for all times and for all 
men the oracle of God. 

107. Mortis in discrimine ... In death's criti- 
cal moment. 

108-125. Pliancy of measure illustrated. See 
Introd. p. 7. 

119. Note the significant alliteration in this line. 

122. Note the onomatopoetic effect of the hiss- 
ing words echoing the demons' offensive shrieks. 

126. O Jesu, help! . . . Under fire of tempta- 
tion from the devil, Gerontius, now brought to the 
last extremity, takes recourse to Jesus, Mary, and 
Joseph. His weakness is aptly indicated by the 
stopping short of this line and the irregular flow of 
the metre in the next. 

131. Rescue him, O Lord. . . . Seeing Geron- 



NOTES 77 

tins in the throes of his last agony, the bystanders, 
still following the Church's ritual, confidently ask 
of God to rescue the dying man, as He had rescued 
so many of His servants of old. 

144. the two Apostles ... St. Peter and 
St. Paul. 

147. Novissima hora est . . . The last moment 
is come. 

149. into Thy hands . . . The last words of 
the dying Saviour. 

150. Proficiscere, anima Christiana . . . The 
opening line of the Church's prayer at the mo- 
ment of the soul's departure. The next line and 
a half is a translation of it ; the solemn prayer then 
goes on to the end in a beautifully rendered 
English version. 

PARAGRAPH 11. 

Line i. I v^ent to sleep . . . The sleep of 
death. 

1-8. How light and buoyant the movement of 
these lines, the sound answering to the sense ! 

9. I had a dream . . . The key-note to the 
poem. 

12. Subvenite . . . The opening word of the 
prayer recited by the priest immediately after the 
death of Gerontius : Subvenite, Sancti Dei ; oc- 
currite, Angeli Domini, Suscipientes animam ejus; 



78 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

Offerentes earn in conspectu Altissimi : Come to 
'his assistance, ye Saints of God ; come forth to 
meet him, ye Angels of the Lord ; Receiving his 
soul ; Offering it in the sight of the Most High. 

22. By a strange introversion . . . Here on 
earth the Soul's thoughts were occupied for the 
most part with things external to itself, and always 
conditioned by the operations of the various senses ; 
but now, in its state of severance from the senses, 
living " out of the expansed world," the Soul has 
" nought to feed upon " but itself, and hence its 
thoughts are naturally driven back " upon their 
spring by a strange introversion." 

45-46. Or I or it is rushing . . . Note the 
rapid movement of these lines, indicating the swift- 
ness of the Soul's flight. 

45-54. An illustration of Newman's perfect mas- 
tery over form, which he knows how to bend and 
shape at will to suit the requirements of the under- 
lying and determining thought. Observe the two 
sublimities of space, boundless in extent, and end- 
less in divisibility ; both majestic in their expression, 
yet contrasted in their movements : the one grave 
and measured, 

Wrought out in lengthening measure- 
ments of space, 
the other light and tripping. 

By endless subdivision hurrying back. 



NOTES 79 

55. some one . . . Gerontius' Angel Guardian. 
It is Catholic teaching that every man is given at 
his birth a ministering angel whose office it is to 
guide and protect his client through life. 

66. Oh what a heart-subduing melody! . . . 
The Angel overjoyed at his client's final victory 
and his own task successfully performed, breaks 
out into a jubilant song of triumph. 

72. Alleluia ... A Hebrew compound word 
meaning Praise ye the Lord. 

89. Of wondrous beings . . . The nine choirs 
of Angels. 

90. Millions of ages back . . . Before the 
creation of the visible world. 

98. O Lord, how wonderful . . . The Angel 
looks serenely back upon the long and arduous 
struggle of his client, recounts his varied history, 
of which, having been his constant, lifelong com- 
panion, he knows every particular, and gives glory^ 
and praise to God, " at whose sublime decree the 
last are first, the first become the last." 

105. in the blood of his first sire ... By the 
sin of Adam. 

107. a demon dire . . . Man's proneness to 
evil resulting from original sin. 

115. at so dread a cost . . . The life-blood ^ 
of the Saviour. 

122. O man, strange composite . . . The great- 
ness and littleness of man are here expressed with 



8o THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

a precision and a boldness of contrast that rival 
the excellence, if not the celebrity of Shakespeare's 
and Young's parallel passages : — 

What a piece of work is man ! How noble in 
reason ! how infinite in faculties ! in form, and 
moving, how express and admirable ! in action, how 
like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a god ! 
the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! 
And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust ? 

Hamlet, Act H. Sc. 2. 

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, 
How complicate, how wonderful is man! 
Distinguished link in being's endless chain; 
INIidway from nothing to the Deity! 
A beam ethereal, sullied and absorpt ; 
Though sullied and dishonored, still divine! 
Dim miniature of greatness absolute; 
An heir of glory ; a frail child of dust : 
Helpless immortal! insect infinite! 
A worm! A god! 

Night Thoughts. Man. 

132. More than the Seraph . . . How beauti- 
ful and touching the sympathy of the Angel with 
man, his younger brother. 

137. as a god . . . The Soul calls the Angel 
a god in the unusual sense in which it is sometimes 
found in Scripture ; e. g. Ps. 81 : 6, John 10: 34. 

142. As no temptation can intoxicate . . . 



NOTES 8 I 

The Soul can no longer be deceived by sinful 
allurements. 

144. such a saintliness . . . On earth saintli- 
ness is sometimes stern and forbidding, and more 
often inspires awe than confidence. 

PARAGRAPH III. 

Line 16. What lets me ... To let is to 
prevent. 

24. Subvenite . . . See note on line 12 of para- 
graph 11. 

29. rise and set harmoniously . , . That is 
with perfect regularity. 

31. the suspended rod . . . The pendulum. 

42. standard of his own chronology . . . 
Length, swiftness, nearness, and their oppositcs 
are all relative ideas, which vary according to the 
mind's intensity and energy of thought. The mind 
needs in its judgments no longer to conform it- 
self to external things, but they to the mind. A 
passage in Dante's Pur gator io expresses the same 
thought : — 

So here the ambient air 

Weareth that form, which influence of the soul 

Imprints on it. 

Canto XXV. 

53. balance of my destiny . . . Whether saved 
or lost for all eternity. 



82 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

63. anticipate . . . An old preterite form for 
anticipated. 

70. first fruit ... of thy recompense . . . 

Possibly the reward for his good deeds as done in 
obedience to the dictate of reason. 

PARAGRAPH IV. 

Line 12. Hist to their cry ... As soon as 
the demons, prowling about the judgment seat, 
catch sight of the Soul borne hitherward by the 
Angel, and from its fearless and tranquil manner 
conclude that it is likely to get from the Judge 
a favorable sentence, they are suddenly seized anew 
by envious liate, and break out into a ranting 
tirade, in which they heap all manner of evil 
names upon God and man : God they call a despot 
and a tyrant ; man, a low-born clod ; the con- 
templative, a psalm-droner ; the preacher, a canting 
groaner; the doer of the law, a slave; the devout 
person, a pious cheat ; the humble man, a crawling 
knave. 

18. By a nev7 birth . . . That is, by Baptism. 

19. an extra grace . . . The grace of Redemp- 
tion through the Saviour. 

23-29. Of the high thought . . . The demons 
here unwittingly describe the state of the faithful 
Angels, — the high eminence, from which as rebels 
they had justly been hurled; but in their vault- 
ing pride, they stubbornly refuse to acknowledge 



NOTES 83 

the justice of their punishment, and would fain 
still be great spirits, powers blest, lords, primal 
owners of the realm of light. 

56. So we are told . . . The demons are con- 
strained to admit their hopeless state of bondage; 
and, as if to compensate themselves for the forced 
admission, fly into a contemptuous rage, casting 
their venom of abuse upon the Saint who by his 
loyalty wins the prize which they have lost. 

59. What's a Saint? . . . Contrast the pic-^ 
ture here given by the demons of man and his 
varied history, with the picture drawn by the 
Angel in his song of victory, as remarked upon 
in note on line 66 of paragraph II. The demons' 
vision is distorted, and the picture they draw reflects 
but the black and murky colors of their own utter 
baseness, and their torn recital of man's laborious 
upward striving strikes but the notes of sardonic 
scorn, Satanic hate, and wild ghoulish jealousy. 

94. Thou hadst a traitor . . . The disordered 
tendency, called concupiscence, through which man's 
heart is from his youth up inclined to sin and 
rebellion. 

125. And not from love . . . The demons, 
unable to deny that the Saint has reached his 
last end and highest good, mockingly insinuate 
that after all it was only sordid selfishness that 
moved him to love and to serve his God. 

149. And thou art v^rapped and swathed 



84 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

around in dreams . . . This line gives the clue to 
the title " Dream." The soul, having passed the 
threshold of this mortal life, finds that, with the 
loss of its outer senses, it has lost too its connatural 
means of converse with the external world. But just 
as in a dream the mind ranges amid the images of 
the various impressions received in the waking state, 
so, in like manner, does the disembodied spirit live, 
as it were, among its own reminiscences, and more 
especially among the truths of faith which on earth, 
albeit they were seen but through a glass darkly, 
were yet its truest and highest possession : — it is 
said, now that it has wholly transcended the ex- 
periences of sense, in a manner to dream 

As ice which blisters may be said to burn. 

It is this novel and mysterious mode of perceiving 
things spiritual that gives significance to the title 
of the poem. It is not simply Newman's habitual 
caution in dealing with subjects of importance — as 
]\Iaurice Francis Egan suggests, — that has led him 
to call the poem a " Dream," as if the author had 
been unwilling to set forth his thoughts and poetical 
musings on that solemn moment of death as rep- 
resenting actual facts; nor yet, — as Alexander 
Whyte seems to hold — the false notion that the 
Soul on its first entrance into the realm of light 
should possess a lesser degree of self-consciousness 
than it had the moment before ; but it is rather, as 



NOTES 85 

I venture to think, the fact that Gerontius' Soul, 
now free and unencumbered, has at last gone out 
among the immensities, if not straightway to see 
face to face, at least by a lower measure of per- 
ception to DREAM, the realities of that higher world 
which it has entered. 

159. Nor hast thou now extension . . . Ex- 
tension, being a property of matter in virtue of 
which the different portions of a material body 
correspond to the different portions of space, can- 
not be a property of the soul, which is in its nature 
a spiritual and an uncompounded being. 

167. day ,of resurrection . . . The day of 
the Last Judgment, when all men will rise from 
the dead, the good unto glory, the wicked unto 
damnation. 

174. Beatific Vision . . . The happiness which 
the Blessed in heaven enjoy by seeing God face 
to face, and participating in the Divine Nature and 
in God's own happiness. 

179. Nathless ... A contracted form of never- 
theless. 

199. There was a mortal . . . The reference 
is to St. Francis of Assisi, who, two years be- 
fore his death, while contemplating in prayer on 
Mt. Alvernia the passion of Christ, was miracu- 
lously transformed into an image of Christ Cruci- 
fied, inasmuch as the Five Wounds of the Passion 
were visibly imprinted on his hands, feet, and 



86 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

side by Our Lord Himself, appearing as a 
Seraph with six winces resplendent and aflame, 
bearing the image of the Crucified. This stigma- 
tization, as it is called, produced in St. Francis at 
once exceeding joy and piercing pain. 

PARAGRAPH V. 

Line i. Hark to those sounds . . . The Choirs 
of Angelicals, one after another, sing the praises 
of God, harmoniously rehearsing the whole history 
of man. 

6. In all His words . . . Not merely spoken 
utterances, but also deeds executed; as in Scrip- 
ture language the Hebrew Dabar and the Latin 
Verhiim mean both word and deed. 

8. His elder race . . . The whole hierarchy of 
Angels. 

12. The younger son . . . Man, who unites in 
his nature all things outside of God, both spi'itual 
and material. 

1 8. To serve as champion . . . Man is the 
crown of the visible creation destined by God to 
rule the whole visible world in Jiis stead, and to 
turn it to his own service. 

19. elemental war . . . War of the elements 
that constitute the material universe. 

22. towards the foe . . . Satan and his hosts, 
who, after their ejection from heaven, were al- 
lowed to carry on a war of hatred against God 



NOTES 87 

and His Elect. In this war man was to prove his 
fidelity to his Maker. 

33. made up of life . . . The Roman Breviary 
has a hymn in the Office for the Dedication of a 
Church, in which the heavenly Jerusalem is de- 
scribed as made up of living stones : — 

Coelestis urbs Jerusalem, 
Beata pacis visio, 
Quae celsa de viventibus 
Saxis ad astra tolleris, 
Sponsaeque ritu cingeris 
Mille Angelorum millibus. 

Blessed city, heavenly Salem, 

Vision dear of peace and love 

Who, of living stones upbuilded, 

Art the joy of heaven above. 

And with angel cohorts circled 

As a bride to earth dost move. 

/ 

41. A recreant in the fight ... By his dis- 
obedience to God. 

44. the angry sky . . . The anger and indig- 
nation of an offended God. 

45. the tempest's din . . . The revolt of ex- 
ternal nature, especially animals and hurtful natu- 
ral influences. 

56. dreed . . . Suffered. 

56. age by age . . . The 4,000 years that pre- 



88 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

ceded the cominor of the Redeemer, in the course 
of which man's helplessness and entire dependence 
on God were forcibly brought home to him. 

60. And quickened by the Almighty's breath 
. . . During the long interval between the promise 
of the Redeemer and His actual coming, God did 
not altogether abandon man, His disobedient son, 
but gave the grace of Redemption by anticipation 
to all who deserved it. 

66-67. A household . . . and a state . . . 
The founding of the Jewish nation, which God 
selected as the living preparation for the advent of 
the Saviour. 

72. like the rushing of the wind . . . How 
admirably the sound of the words corresponds to 
their meaning:! 

77. Descend ecstatic odors . . . The figure 
called Prolepsis : the epithet ecstatic is introduced 
in advance of the odors, which are the cause of 
the ecstasy. 

86. For them no twilight or eclipse . . . The 
trial of the Angels, as described in this stanza, 
forms a beautiful contrast to the description in the 
next few stanzas of man's trial. 

93. The morning dawned on all . . . The 
coming of the Saviour, with His light and warmth- 
giving grace, is aptly likened to the rising sun. 

95. divide the precious and the base . . . 
The Elect — those who avail themselves of the 



NOTES 89 

merits of Christ — are even now being gradually 
separated from the wicked. 

99. his second birth . , . Baptism, through 
which man is restored to the supernatural life and 
to the inheritance of the sons of God. 

107. The forfeit of his sins ... By sin man 
had lost not only the supernatural Hfe of the soul, 
which made him a perfect image and likeness of 
God, but had lost as well all the preternatural 
gifts, that is, privileges bestowed on man, which 
elevated him above his own nature to a state similar 
to that of the Angels. These privileges, chief 
among them immortality of the body, were for- 
feited by sin, and not restored by Redemption. 

109. The penance-fire . . . Purgatory, a middle 
state between Heaven and Hell, where departed 
souls are detained because of their being still bur- 
dened either with unforgiven venial sins, or with 
an uncancelled debt of temporal punishment for 
their forgiven sins. 

119. A sovereign febrifuge ... A medicine to 
cure fever. 

120. And yet withal . . . How paradoxical, 
yet how convincing! 

133. as to be used so vilely . . . The mys- 
tery of the permission of evil : that God should 
have allowed Himself to be injured or damaged in 
His external glory by His creature's offense. 

143-144. The longing for Him , . . A superb 



90 THE DREAM OF GERONTIUS 

description of the paradoxical nature of the pun- 
ishment of Purgatory : the tenderest love joined 
to the most bitter contrition and sorrow. 

154-169. Observe the greater sweep and roll in 
the verse as the fervidness of the sentiment grows. 

156. By man hath come the infinite display 
. . . The goodness and mercy of God, and the 
greatness and superabundance of Christ's saving 
grace through the Incarnation, shine forth most 
brilliantly in the varied history of man. 

163. Amid the garden shade . . . The garden 
of Gethsemane. 

166. the Law which He Himself had made 
. . . *' In what day soever thou shalt eat of it 
(the tree of knowledge of good and evil) thou 
shalt die the death." Gen. II. 17. 

176-195. The foe blasphemed ... A strong 
presentation of Satan's contempt for God's recreant 
son, rebellious man. 

179. The frontier place . . . Where man was 
to have proved his fidelity to his Maker, and to 
have covered the devil with greater shame, in that 
the enemy should have been overcome by the 
weaker creature, *' a being of flesh and blood." 

202-221. O loving wisdom of Our God: . . . 
The unwarranted boast which the foe had made, 
as if God had reckoned ill, receives a fit reply in 
the song of the Fifth Choir of Angelicals. They 
tell in glowing words of God's infinite mercy, 



NOTES 91 

wisdom and goodness, which found in the In- 
carnation a means not only of wresting fallen man 
from the grasp of the sneering tyrant, but also of 
elevating him to a state of perfection higher than 
that from which he fell. Human nature had en- 
grafted upon it the Author of grace, so that now 
it lay in the power of every child of Adam to be- 
come himself a god, another Christ. 

212. God's presence . . . Through the Incar- 
nation and the Holy Eucharist. 

214-217. that He who smote ... A succinct 
expression of Christ's vicarious satisfaction : Christ 
in His human nature suffers death to repurchase 
for man the liberty of the sons of God. 

PARAGRAPH VI. 

Line 5. Subvenite . . . See note on line 12 of 
paragraph II. 

12. Jesu, by that shuddering dread which fell 
on Thee! Observe again, how fittingly the metre 
is changed to suit the underlying sentiment. 

23. To that glorious Home . . . This last line 
of the Angel's prayer literally overflows, as in in- 
tensity of appeal, so in the number of feet, with 
mention of the sight of the Most Fair. 

24. Ah! . . . The bare exclamation after w^hat 
has gone before is more piercingly eloquent than 
any words, however burning, could have been. 



92 THE DREAM OE GERONTIUS 

29. But, ere it reach them . . . How vividly 
the Angel portrays the act of judgment! The 
very words seethe and crackle as he tells how 
the happy suffering soul is smitten by the keen 
sanctity of the Crucified. 

36. Take me away . . . The Soul now feels 
what the Angel meant when he spoke of his ap- 
proaching agony : — 

the sight of the Most Fair 
Will gladden thee, but it will pierce thee too. 
And again : — 

thou wilt desire 
To slink away, and hide thee from His sight, 
And yet wilt have a longing aye to dwell 
Within the beauty of His countenance. 

PARAGRAPH VH. 

Line i. Now let the golden prison ope its 
gates . . . Purgatory is here called a golden prison, 
a name which fitly designates the paradoxical state 
in which the Soul is now placed. 

8-19. Lord, Thou hast been our refuge . . . 
A paraphrase of Psalm 89, which is a prayer for 
the mercy of God, recounting the shortness and 
miseries of the days of man. 

22-37. Farewell . . . How subduingly tender 
and affectionate the words of parting! For the 
verse, see Introduction. 



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